


The Vanguard

by greywash



Series: Fun in the Sun Creative Calisthenics [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Additional warnings in story notes, Alcohol, Backstory, F/F, Loss, Politics, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 22:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15616443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash
Summary: In the morning Kara wakes, still in half of her armor, to Geiravor clanging her gauntlet against the shell of Kara's cringing mollusk shoulder. "Get up," says Geiravor, as bright as the sunlight as bright as her hair.





	The Vanguard

**Author's Note:**

> No, I haven’t abandoned this little project; I was just deathly ill and then having a kind of bananas month. I am hoping to get the last four finished in the next four days, LET’S SEE HOW IT GOES.
> 
> **[@quixoticdino](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/quixoticdino)** asked for:
>
>> Prompt: Trade our places Take no chances Bind me 'til my lips are silent Stay where you are Ever, after Chasing things that we should run from Will we ever get away from this place It's an image that's burned on my chest For a moment you need me to stay Cold blooded and drifting away - "tether" - chvrches / MCU
> 
> First, a quick note about naming: I know that Valkyrie in the Marvel comics is called Brunnhilde, but AFAIK she isn't directly named in _Thor: Ragnarok_ ([Tessa Thompson is just credited as "Valkyrie" on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1935086/)), and there's a lot of canon-related reasons why I kind of feel like _Thor: Ragnarok_ 's Valkyrie can and maybe _should_ be treated as a different Valkyrie to comics!Valkyrie (not the least of which is the death of all the other Valkyries). So I decided to assume that in the MCU, Brunnhilde was one of the Valkyries who died, and a different Valkyrie survived; I took the name Kára ("the wild, stormy one") for her absolute zero fucks given from [this list of Valkyrie names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_valkyrie_names) (Wikipedia, so you know, take with that grain of salt), and decided her girlfriend could be Geiravör ("spear-goddess"); and then I anglicized those names in a way that seemed in keeping with other anglicized Norse names in the MCU. 
> 
> **Warnings for disturbing content**. My full warning policy is [in my profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/profile#warnings), and you are always welcome to [email me](mailto:greywash@gmail.com) with more specific warning-related questions.

Beside the plain, black with Vanir blood, their general raises up her sword; and Kara roars with her sisters. The battle-fever is hot upon her, still. Inside her. Her vision stretches—glowing—and swims. When it burns out of her she will feel hollow, she knows, cold and alone and shivering; but not now not here not yet. Geiravor at her left passes Kara the horn and Kara drinks: to Odin All-Father; to Frigga the Wise; to Hela the Kind, their great general; to the shining spires of Asgard and all Her people, safe by the blades of the Valkyrie. The voices of her sisters rising up, up, up everywhere around her; and with them, Kara rises, too.

In the morning Kara wakes, still in half of her armor, to Geiravor clanging her gauntlet against the shell of Kara's cringing mollusk shoulder. "Get up," says Geiravor, as bright as the sunlight as bright as her hair; and Kara winces away from the lot of them. "The general," says Geiravor, "has called for us at the vanguard."

"What?" Kara groans, struggling up. Squinting. "The vanguard of _what_?" she asks. Did they not defeat the Vanir?

Crouched beside her, Geiravor shrugs, elaborate in all her armor. "There are still villages beyond the plain, I think," she says. "Never mind. They'll tell us. Not ours for thinking, is it?"

Cheerful, unconcerned. Kara's eyes meet hers; and in the long silence that follows, Geiravor's face shifts, and then resettles.

Outside the battle-fever and the feasting that follows, Kara has found she is not good at not thinking. Kara thinks that before the first battle, that she and her sisters were nearly children, still. Gathering apples. Weaving with their mothers. Kara thinks about how on the longest days Geiravor had taken Kara's hand and they had run to the river, laughing; bathed the summer from their skin, then laid out their plain shifts on the grasses and their bare bodies beside them to steam in the sun until they were dry. She thinks about how they had danced, hadn't they: with all their sisters: the old clumsy uncouth steps in the old dingy courtyards of Old Asgard, plain but sun-golden, jeweled with dew. Asgard, when it was still hewn stone. Smoke and dirt.

Chickens.

Geiravor grasps the back of her neck. "Odin's will and Hela's might," she says, with her eyes sharp; and Kara looks away.

Asgard has changed. They are painting them onto the walls, but only one version of them. Odin had given to them Hela and wooden sticks and laughed to see them bat at one another, puppyish and clumsy: a sea of peasant girls and their princess, adored, delightful, the lot of them giggling and playing at hero, until as if by fate Brunnhilde had caught Hela across the mouth, her lip springing up ruby-wet beneath the fire of her emerald eyes; and with the slow-racing drop of that black blood, they—all things—had changed. Hela was changed. Brunnhilde was changed. In that first battle in their hands the sticks were suddenly not as sticks but as spears and new-forged swords, and with them, then—one by one—her other sisters were changing too, from peasant girls into the clay of war: Hrist. Reginleif. Goll.

Geiravor.

Kara, at the last.

And then it was laid before them, their battle and their path: to Vanir, Kind Hela before them; and to the jeweled walls of a new and golden Asgard. Onto the blood-black plain.

"After the next new moon, Idunn will need help with the apples," Kara is saying; but she forces her voice to stop.

"Kara," says Geiravor, and then sighs. She touches Kara's cheek with her mailed hand; and then her mouth. "The general has called for us at the vanguard," she says, very quietly. "And you reek of mead."

Kara swallows, rubbing at her face.

"If you don't get up and get into your armor, my love," murmurs Geiravor, "I'm going to have to throw you in the horse trough."

Kara looks up at her, her throat heavy. Unfruiting words. Bent close to her Geiravor hair is still glowing, the sun through the mouth of the tent behind her. This close, her eyes are very dark, but not unkind. Kara's mouth is full up with the taste of her by the river.

"Odin's will and Hela's might," says Kara, pushing back the wild sweaty mess of her hair; and Geiravor slaps her once again on the shoulder, and then reaches down to pull Kara up to her feet.


End file.
